The Minister of the Presidency, Public Administrations, Justice and Security of the Government of the Canary Islands, Nieves Lady Barreto, met this Monday with the acting mayor of the Arrecife City Council to close the agreement for the transfer of the facilities that will house the future island police station of the General Corps of the Canarian Police in Lanzarote.
Barreto visited the building accompanied by the Deputy Minister of Justice and Security, Cesáreo Rodríguez, and the General Director of Security, David del Pino, and by the hand of the acting mayor of the Arrecife City Council, Echedey Eugenio, and the head of the Technical Office, Maciot Cabrera.
With the agreement closed, the next step will be the signing of a collaboration agreement between the Ministry of the Presidency of the Government of the Canary Islands and the capital's City Council for the transfer of the use of this building that will house one of the first police stations of the Autonomous Police on a non-capital island.
"The collaboration of the Island Council, with its president Oswaldo Betancort at the head, and the Arrecife City Council has allowed us to move forward quickly. Once the agreement is signed, all that remains is to adapt the facilities and the forecast is that in 2025 we will already have personnel permanently assigned to the island," said Nieves Lady Barreto, who explained that the chosen location, in the capital of the island, responds to operational reasons and the proposal put forward by the Island Council and the city councils.
For his part, the acting mayor, Echedey Eugenio, assured that "Arrecife, as the third capital of the Canary Islands, deserves special attention in terms of security. Hosting a permanent base of the Canarian Police has been one of our demands and our commitments and will soon be a reality."
Minister Barreto stressed, in this regard, that "only when we begin to materialize the deployment in the non-capital islands can we say, at last, that the Canarian Police is the Police of all the Canary Islands, not only of Gran Canaria and Tenerife," and insisted that the Corps only has a reason to exist if it grows and has a stable presence in all the islands. "This is, moreover, what all the island councils, the city councils and even the citizens themselves are demanding, who increasingly value the presence of the Autonomous Police in their streets and their events."
As Nieves Lady Barreto clarifies, for this it is essential to increase the number of personnel. "We started the legislature a year ago with 192 agents and now we are around 280. We already have a call for 140 places in progress and a next call that will be launched next year for another 150 places. Our forecasts are to reach 800 personnel in 2027."